# How migrants’ transcultural perceptions shape their children’s bilingual language development: Insights from a cross-sectional multicultural study

## TL;DR

This study explores how migrant parents' views on culture and family influence their children's bilingual language development in France.

## Contribution

The study identifies specific parental transcultural perceptions linked to children's heritage language skills.

## Key findings

- Positive perceptions of transgenerational transmission correlate with better heritage language expression.
- Positive views on extended-family relationships and migration changes correlate with poorer heritage language skills.
- Transcultural factors do not significantly affect majority language skills.

## Abstract

Little is known about the factors affecting children’s language acquisition in transcultural situations and how clinicians can take these children’s specific needs into account.

To better understand the acquisition of bilingualism by migrant parents’ children, our aim was to study the relations between parental transcultural perceptions and their children’s language skills in both the heritage language and the host country’s majority language.

This cross-sectional study included 114 kindergarten children, born in France to migrant parents speaking Arabic, Tamil, or Soninke. Children’s expressive language and comprehension skills were assessed with the ELAL and the N-EEL scales. In semistructured interviews, parents answered questions about perceptions of migration-related changes, extended-family relationships, and transgenerational transmission. Quantitizing methods and regression models were used to assess these factors’ potential associations with children’s language skills after adjustment for background characteristics and languages used at home.

Children of parents with a strongly positive perception of transgenerational transmission had better expressive skills in their heritage language. However, strongly positive parental perceptions of extended-family relationships and of migration-related changes were independently associated with some poorer skills in the heritage language. None of these transcultural/familial factors was significantly associated with any of the majority language skills assessed.

This research suggests that parental perceptions of migration, extended-family relationships, and transgenerational transmission are closely related to their children’s heritage language skills regardless of the choice of languages spoken at home. Further research on transcultural factors is necessary to illuminate the mechanisms underlying bilingual learning and inform evidence-based practices for clinicians.